We invented words; we'll tell you how they're supposed to sound.
— John Oliver
I've always been interested in socially political, or overtly political, comedy. And I guess I've always liked to channel some kind of personal element to that.
I have occasionally - if ever I do interviews that are difficult or nerve-wracking - I take my wife's dog tags and have them in my pocket because it's a very quick way to realize that what I'm doing is not that important. It's not really worth getting stressed about because it's not, you know, war.
There is no greater anesthetic than sport.
I do one accent - my own. I can make it louder or quieter. That is the sum total of my vocal range. I thought I could do an American accent until I tried it in front of an American - the expression of horror is still burnt onto my retinas.
Politicians don't really bring up religion in England.
I would never heckle someone. That's why I think I'm so interested in someone that would.
My family is from Liverpool, so I have some of those vowel sounds, I've got the slack tone of someone from Birmingham, and then I was raised in Bedford, which is just north of London. So my accent, if it's possible, makes even less sense to a Brit than to an American.
Stand-up comedy seems like a terrifying thing. Objectively. Before anyone has done it, it seems like one of the most frightening things you could conceive, and there's just no shortcut - you just have to do it.
I really love stand-up. I'm more than happy to do it for nothing. I've come to America to do it for nothing. It's the American Dream: Work for free.
I would much rather America was a more stable, wonderful place. You know, I love it.
Americans just don't understand dry wit.
Veterans' issues are quite close to my heart. I find it quite hard to talk about, actually.
Attending a Sarah Palin rally was simultaneously one of the strangest and most chilling events of my life.
As any Brit will understand, things get a little easier when you don't have to be number one any more. Really, the fall of an empire is not as bad as everyone thinks. It's like retirement. People fear retirement, but it can turn out be rather pleasant.
Southern people are bigger-hearted and kinder than I had any right to expect.
I feel non-stop Brit shame!
I've said yes to everything that Jon Stewart has asked me to do. That's been a pretty good career decision, I think.
There is an inherent hope and positive drive to New Yorkers.
Every empire has to get sucked down the drain. As a British person, I know how it feels.
We in Britain stopped evolving gastronomically with the advent of the pie. Everything beyond that seemed like a brave, frightening new world. We knew the French were up to something across the Channel, but we didn't want anything to do with it.
In improv, the whole thing is that it is a relationship between the two people, as a back and forth. In standup, you don't really want to be listening to what somebody is saying; you want to project your jokes into their face.
I watch one news channel until my soul can't take it anymore. It's the background of my life.
There are two kinds of hecklers: the destructive and constructive hecklers.
There are some people who watch NASCAR for the highly skilled driving - but most people watch it for the crashes.
I'm not really much of an actor, so when I started on 'The Daily Show,' I was just trying to adopt the faux authority of a newsperson. Having a British accent definitely gave me a sonic leg up on that because there is a faux authority to the British accent in and of itself.
Most stand-ups, once they have done it, think of it as their default job. I'm pretty sure Jon Stewart still feels that way now. You are a stand-up first; other things come and go.
Australia turns out to be a sensational place, albeit one of the most comfortably racist places I've ever been in. They've really settled into their intolerance like an old resentful slipper.
It really helps a comedian to be an outsider.
Congress never loses its capacity to disappoint you.
People are always going to say stupid things, and you're always going to be able to make jokes about that, but it should be the last thing you add in, because it's the easiest thing.
I realize how desperate it sounds for me, as a comedian, to ask you to laugh at my jokes.
If you're asking me, would I have voted for Mitt Romney, the answer is absolutely not. Emphatically not. I cannot envision a world in which I would have voted for Mitt Romney unless I sustained a massive concussion.
If you work on a comedy show, your basic form of communication is teasing. That's generally how we speak to each other: you communicate the information between the lines of insulting sentences.
I'm always interested in audience interaction. Not so much aggressive audience interaction - I'm genuinely interested in how people see things.
Politics has become infused with narcissism in America.
Being a Mets fan is like lending someone a lot of money and you just know that you'll never get paid back.
Sometimes it's good to remember how bad food can be, so you can enjoy the concept of flavour to the fullest.
I'm British; pessimism is my wheelhouse.
My first 'Daily Show' piece was pretending I had this terrible immigrant journey, so I went to talk to an immigration lawyer who would help out people, and I ran into him in Penn Station about three months after I'd gotten the green card. I said, 'I got my green card yesterday.' And he hugged me because he understood that level of relief.
The British press are a group of unremitting scumbags. And sometimes they use that scumbaggery to good ends, and often not.
When you're doing stand-up, you want to stand onstage and, to the extent that you can, uncomplicatedly entertain.
You have to do stand-up quite a long time before you learn how to do it well. It was probably years before I was confident enough in stand-up that I was able to talk about the things I wanted to talk about, the way I wanted to talk about them.
People really have come for a dialogue when they go to a stand-up show in the U.K. They say, 'I understand that you have now finished your little comedy monologue; now I have something to say regarding what I've just heard.
Campaign ads are the backbone of American democracy if American democracy suffered a gigantic spinal injury.
A Southern accent is not a club in my bag.
I have exactly as much rhythm as you think I have.
There is so much cross-pollination between the U.S. and Britain in terms of comedians. British TV comedies work well in the U.S. American stand-ups make it big in Britain.
Having a human conversation is not something I've had any training in either as a comedian or as, you know, a human being.
I feel more at home knowing I'm not really at home. It takes all the pressure off you trying to fit in!
